


I'd Never Eat Your Brains

by The Elder Gays (Katanachan)



Series: Monsters Unleashed [1]
Category: South Park, The Walking Dead (Comics)
Genre: Blood and Gore, Crenny, Dystopia, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Eventual Romance, Fluff and Angst, Immortality, Implied Past Creek, Implied Relationships, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Inspired by The Walking Dead, M/M, Past Character Death, Slow Burn, Walkers (Walking Dead), Zombie Apocalypse, Zombies, south park - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-20
Updated: 2018-04-20
Packaged: 2019-04-25 05:43:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,477
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14372154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Katanachan/pseuds/The%20Elder%20Gays
Summary: Kenny McCormick can’t die in a world where no one else can stay dead.





	1. Endless Waltz

**Author's Note:**

> Hey everyone! We’re really excited to start this fic, we both love zombies and South Park just works so good with the idea! We hope you enjoy!

Kenny isn’t sure how the world ended; he only remembers how _his_ world ended. It was a few months into this hell storm and he had somehow managed to get his little sister out of South Park. He had no way of knowing if his friends had survived, it had happened so fast that Kenny hadn’t been handed the luxury of even wondering about anyone but Karen. They had been incredibly lucky, it should have dawned on him that his luck was never quite so good, that the other shoe was bound to drop eventually.

He can remember every tiny detail about that night. It had been raining and the two of them had been on the run from a herd that they just couldn’t seem to shake. No matter the twists and turns, the ups and downs, the undead seemed to be on their heels constantly. Kenny could see the exhaustion weighing down on his sister and he knew he had to make a tough call if he was going to get them out alive.  It wasn’t clear to him how his curse would work in this new world, he wasn’t sure how it had worked in the old one. But he knew one thing and one thing only, Karen had to survive.

The rain had started coming down hard as the two of them scurried across the damp ground. They’d tried their best to stay out of the city, but it was time to break that. Kenny figured they could finally lose the herd among the rooftops. His plan had been simple, he would make sure Karen was safe, then he would parkour through the city faster than the undead could keep up. He’d draw them far far away from her and if he couldn’t? Well, he would most likely just come back in whatever fucked up fashion his curse would manifest itself in the new bold world.

Karen had been climbing a fence and Kenny was ready, he had a route picked out. But something was wrong. The moment the undead were meant to catch glimpse of him and start his run, they did something unpredictable.

They ignored him.

Kenny can remember the exact second that his veins filled with fear. It was when Karen’s screams invaded his ears. He threw caution to the wind, who cared if the undead bit him and turned him if Karen was hurt? He bolted right into the herd, pushing, screaming, waving his arms. He did everything he could possible do to gain their attention, but not one of them turned. Not a single body stopped to pay attention to him. They’re hive mind latched onto Karen so quickly that Kenny didn’t even have time to breathe.

She didn’t stand a chance against the amount of undead grabbing a hold of the chain link fence. They tugged and pulled, growling and moaning in a twisted serenade, a chorus of death. Kenny pushed against the creatures with all his might, ripped at them, tore at them with his bare hands, but it was to no avail.  
  
He would never for as long as he lived would be able to forget the look in her eyes when she fell. The terror on her little face as her body hit the moving mass of limbs and the blood curdling screams that pulled from her as their fingers dug into skin as they ripped her apart.

The image burned into his unconscious mind as Kenny stood there, screaming, filled with primal rage as he destroyed monster after monster.

It was that day that Kenny discovered the first new flaw to his curse. An evolution so to speak, being invisible to the undead. It wasn’t until much later that Kenny realized perhaps the reason they weren’t interested wasn’t so much that he was cured, but perhaps because he smelled of death. His curse had always brought him back to life, something about that lingering on his skin.

How and when the apocalypse actually started seems to always be the prevalent question on all of the survivors minds that Kenny has encountered on his travels. It’s not that he cares how, since it is what it is and there was little to nothing they could do about it now. But it’s something survivors are always privy to talk about. They trade rumors and gossip like it’s fact, basing their travels and hopes on scraps of information, information that sells the idea that some places are walker free. Kenny noticed that this is what people use to keep living as they try to ignore the awful and dying world around them.

But it doesn’t matter to him. Nothing does. Not after Karen died.

In the beginning, Kenny tried his best to help as many people as he could. He would rush head first into the mass of hordes, he knew will ignore him, pulling people from the grip of undead flesh. But the longer he tried, the more he failed and the more he felt like the very dead around him. Cold. Unfeeling. Falling apart.

Too many people. He had failed far too many people to want to keep trying.

So, Kenny avoids where he knows the pockets of survivors are. He avoids the large cities that have started to crop up and wanders the vast fields of land that the horde has over-run. Sometimes he’ll stumble upon a town and do some important runs for them. He always stops at hospitals and makes sure to carry vital supplies with him for trading and if he slips a few extra to these poor souls, well, don’t tell them.

Rumors start circulating about a lone survivor who has an immunity to the dead. They spread the rumor that he isn’t infected, that he carries some type of cure inside him. Sadly, they couldn’t be farther from the truth. Kenny knows first-hand that he’s infected. He knows they all are. The only difference is that the dead ignore him, or more specifically, they accept him as one of their own.

Kenny found out a while after his first discovery that his curse had manifested another flaw, the inability to be mortally wounded.  Where he would simply wake up in his bed at home after he died before, Kenny’s flesh now healed when injured. He wasn’t sure how it worked of course, much like his original curse. But it appeared to him that it was still evolving in reaction to whatever created the walker virus. His body in constant flux, whatever twisted irony that made him unable to die, now kept him alive to torture him more. After Karen’s death Kenny had attempted to take his life. But even getting deadass drunk and throwing yourself off of a business building wasn’t enough for his curse. No, he’d woken up the next day, body completely in order, not even a broken bone.

He wasn’t sure exactly how he’d healed and it hadn’t been tested again until a situation presented itself much later. A lone survivor wanted his gear and Kenny had told him to fuck directly off. A stab wound to the back taught him his next lesson. It had punctured his heart and he was sure this time death would stick. Alas, the next day he woke up still alive, the punctured skin in his back healed into nothing but normal smooth skin.  
  
It’s now that Kenny finds himself walking through a deserted campus of some unnamed college long gone. The sound of his feet hitting the ground as he walks, the only thing cutting through the excessive moans of the stragglers shambling to their unknown destinations. Sometimes Kenny likes to stop and watch them, think about what kind of person they were before they died. He has a small camera, a Polaroid, that he takes pictures with. When he sees someone that reminds him of his old life, of people he dearly misses, he takes a picture and saves it.

He’s far from his hometown now. Lord knows how far he’s walked since it all started. Since he lost her.

The blond isn’t even sure where he is, nor does he care. He tries his best to ignore the fact that one of these millions of faceless walkers could end up being any number of the people he'd left behind. If he could truly convince himself, this morbid version of ‘Where’s Waldo’ he plays with the dead wouldn’t be so scary. But he’s often distracted by some shambling nobody that shares features of one of the many denizens that made up his tiny little mountain town. His heart aches when these moments happen, the snap of his camera heard echoing into the mass of bodies. He misses Karen. He misses Stan and Kyle. Fuck, he even misses Cartman.

South Park wasn’t perfect, but it was his and now he has no idea if any of them have survived this shit-show. Part of him hopes they did and the realistic part of him knows they probably didn’t.

Like Karen.

Maybe it was more merciful that way?

Kenny isn’t sure why it is he doesn’t die now, how the curse and the virus seem to rage a war inside his body between wanting him dead and wanting him alive. It’s funny, the boy who died too much now unable to die at all? He wishes he could die, die and go to Heaven so he can scream in God’s face. Scream until he was sent to Hell so he could fight Lucifer himself over this goddamn tragic tale.

Which one of them cursed the world with this virus he wonders?

Or was it simply mankind's own doing?

He’s seen enough evils deeds committed by humanity to know they cause the most damage.

But God Dammit if he wasn’t lonely.

\-----

Kenny likes to lie in the middle of the road and let his imagination run wild.

It could be what used to be a busy highway or a small-town road. It doesn’t really matter to him; they’re all abandoned now. There are cars broken down and useless on the side of the turnpike, nature taking back what was originally hers, over growing the machines. He stares at the sky, the unchanging vastness of the cosmos above him. It comforts him to know that no matter what shit fuck situation the world is in that out there in that endless void, is unchanging scenery.

A voice in the back of his head mocks him, it’s nasally just like he remembers it, and it makes his lips upturn when he imagines the young man that goes along with it.

_“Space is always changing, idiot. Stars burn out and die all the time. Didn’t you pay attention in class?"_

His heart swells in moments like this when his mind is clear and he can remember the people closest to him as if they were still there.

Kenny can hear Craig’s unique voice during this clarity, imagining Tweek standing beside him twitching and laughing as Kenny would shrug just to annoy the taller boy.

 _“I think he k-knows that, Craig. Look, he’s g-got that look.”_ Kenny imagines Tweek saying in all his spastic glory and he can feel his eyes blurring, the tears threatening to fall.

 _“Dude, no way. Kenny sucks at astrology.”_ Stan adds, his imagination supplying the boys tone perfectly. Both of them would be fully aware that it was Astronomy but wanting to annoy the star-boy all the same.

Kenny imagines Stan having his famous shit-eating grin plastered on his face as Craig would undoubtedly begin to get heated up at their feigned ignorance.

 _“It’s Astronomy you dickhole.”_ Craig would most definitely grit out, Tweek shaking his head and rolling his eyes at the boy’s antics.

When the laughter in his imagination dies out Kenny can feel the hot tears streaming down his cheeks. He’s aware that the loud piercing wail is coming from him even if the sound of it is foreign to his own ears. His hands shake and he curls inward, body small as he hugs himself. Kenny finds himself sobbing into the darkness; just as alone as he was before, wishing he could successfully die, just for the chance to maybe see them all again.

\-----

Kenny purposely does not go close to the large cities. It hurts too much to see that many people in one place, knowing it will only call the undead to them and ultimately, he’ll have to stand by as he helplessly watches them be devoured piece by painful piece. However, sometimes, Kenny has to admit to himself that he need social interaction. 

He knows he’ll lose his mind out there if he doesn’t.

It’s tradition that he raids as many pharmacies and clinics that he can before he heads into civilization.  He knows they’re crawling with walkers and what humans need more than four walls protecting them, are the drugs that can save their lives. It’s not hard for him to get into these buildings when it’s only the undead he has to worry about.

But when it’s humans, _well fuck_ , that’s different.

They have way too many questions and right now he’s found himself a pocket of living breathing people.  Kenny clicks his tongue and decides to avoid the four of them. He can’t see details, they’re too far away and it’s twilight, but he sees the guns and that’s enough to convince him that this is a bad idea. The blond uses a knife if he has to kill the undead; it’s quiet and fast and doesn’t call hordes down upon you, not that he has to worry about that. But he’s courteous of any other living creature in his surrounding areas, it’s not like he wants to accidentally kill anyone out of ignorance.

Kenny is two seconds away from saying _deuces_ and skipping out of this situation when he realizes something is wrong. The group is splitting up and Kenny can feel his chest tighten.

“Don’t split up, what are you the Scooby Doo gang?” He grumbles to himself or thinks, he isn’t sure. It’s been a while since Kenny has spoken out loud.  Blue eyes watch as the group separates and he hisses out a breath of annoyance, great, he couldn’t let them just go off and get killed. He decides to follow the one that took it upon themselves to go inside the pharmacy, which statistically happens to be the most dangerous.

Walkers were super tricky and liked to hide in nooks and crannies.

Kenny stays low and jogs his way past all the abandoned cars, hiding among the bushes and fallen parts of buildings. There are naturally walkers scattered all over the area. Not so much in a horde, which is when you need to worry, but enough of them littering the parking lot for him to be worried for these idiots.

Picking up a small rock Kenny tosses it to get the attention of the nearest walker.

Standing he stabs the knife through its forehead, he then turns to the next few and does the same. It’s almost like shooting ducks in a barrel for him. They don’t even fight back and it still makes him sick to his stomach at how easy it is for him. It’s disgusting when he thinks too much about it, the fact that these bodies use to house human souls. He swallows down the lump in his throat, apologizing to the dead as he lays them down on the ground one at a time as he dispatches them. When he’s sure he’s thinned the herd out enough that he can enter the building without leading them straight to the idiot inside, he runs full force for the door.

 _God damn it._ Kenny realizes too late that the guy locked it behind him. He rolls his head to the side exasperated and bolts for the side of the building. There has to be a back door.

When he loops behind the building the sight he finds causes him to pale. Because _fuck_ , just because he can’t die doesn’t mean the sight of a massive undead horde doesn’t send chills down his spine.  On the other side of a weak looking chain link fence is a giant group of walkers. He’s incredibly thankful that they don’t give two tits about him, so he doesn’t draw their attention as he walks up to the back door and opens it.

He has to get this moron and his pals out of here before they’re walker chow.

Kenny heads straight for the area he knows usually has the medical supplies, keeping an eye out for any rouge undead in the building. His heart sinks when he hears what sounds like a struggle in the aisle that carries bandages.

 _No, god. No, not again!_ He screams at himself, story of his life, he’s always too _fucking_ late.

Kenny feels his body pulsing into high gear as he runs as hard as he can toward the sounds. He skids to a stop in front of the aisle, the scene in front of him plays out like a bad horror movie. He sees a tall guy pinned to the ground by a large undead cashier and he steels himself, his shoulders lifting as he pulls his baseball bat from the backpack. Kenny runs forward putting all of his weight and momentum into slamming the metal bat against the side of the walker’s head. It makes a sickening thud sound and his stomach churns when it doesn't even struggle. Kenny is invisible to its senses and the dumb bastard is ignorant to his presences. He jumps over the man on the ground and attacks the walker with every ounce of strength he has.

He bashes the things head in, _once, twice, three times._

Kenny keeps pounding at it. He has to make sure it’s actually dead, what did that old movie say? Double tap? Well Kenny was more into triple tap himself. You can’t re-kill it too much, after all.

"T-thanks," the guy rasps out from his spot on the ground, heaving breaths echoing off the raided shelves.  Kenny can feel his eyes on his back once the walker is sufficiently decimated, knows they drop to watch blood and decaying brain tissue drip off the end of his bat with a sickening splat.  "He caught me off guard."  
  
"That tends to happen when you go into a building alone." Kenny grumbles as he swings his bat to shake off some of the blood and gore.  He turns to give the guy a thorough lecture when his words die on his lips. His eyes widen at the sight of the last person he'd ever expect to see again.

A million emotions cross his face as a broken name comes out of his mouth. " ** _Craig?_ ** ”

Green eyes widen, Craig seemingly unable to do anything but stare at his former classmate, his friend. " _Kenny?_ "


	2. Tom's Diner

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What could go wrong on a road trip?

They were at a diner when he realized that everything had gone to shit.

Clyde had somehow managed to afford a camper and coerced Token, Tweek, and himself into a road trip for spring break. Why he had agreed at the time, he'll never fully understand, but he thanks whatever madness overtook him at the time.

He's strong, but he doesn't know how far he would have gotten alone.

The diner was empty except for a couple making out in a booth at the back, but Clyde was on his road trip high, and nothing could crush his spirits, even when no one came to take their order for almost 20 minutes.

Craig noticed the blood first. He's still stunned it took him so long to see it considering there was so damn much of it, but when Tweek caught his eyes, following his gaze, watching the woman in the back booth tearing the esophagus out of the man she was with, he knew it was over.

The four of them sprinted back to the camper, grabbing anything they could on their way out; knives, forks, the 'Please Wait To Be Seated' sign because "Fuck you can swing it, can't you?" Clyde had shrieked once they were in the confides of their van again.

Craig didn't know he could drive that fast, didn't know that a stupid fucking rental camper could hit 90. They were somewhere in Arizona, middle of god damn nowhere, Token's eyes narrowed as he messed with the radio to get a decent signal, to try to find out what the hell was going on.

_"...Stay inside. Do not attempt to leave. Seek immediate shelter and await further instructions. A nationwide state of emergency has been declared. This is no-"_

Silence fell over them as the voice cut off, the emergency alarm sounding instead.

"There has to be another station," Token muttered, voice calm even as his fingers shook against the dial.

The other six stations they managed to get a clear signal for stated the same thing, each panicked voice echoing through the camper as they drove in silence.

Tweek had needed to move around the van, bouncing between standing, pacing, sitting, and finally coming to rest behind Craig at the driver's seat, hand locked in a vice grip on his shoulder. It didn't matter that they broke up half way through their first year at college, the distance putting too much of a strain on their relationship, because their friendship flourished in its wake. Old habits die hard, and Craig settled his hand over the blonde’s, giving it a comforting squeeze.

"If this is happening all the way out here, the cities have to be infinitely worse," Token said softly, sitting heavily next to Clyde, his words mirroring Craig's thoughts.

"What should we do?" Clyde whispered from his seat in the back, and in the reflection of the rear view mirror Craig saw his best friend since before preschool crumbling slowly, and knew he needed to do whatever he could to keep them all safe. He had to.

\--------

  
Home.

It was the unanimous decision of where they should try, for nothing else if not to try. They had families, friends, and history in their small mountain town, and while Craig didn't want to admit it out loud, he held out hope that maybe South Park had been spared. That by some fucking miracle no one was bored enough to drive through their shithole town and it was there. That everyone they left behind when they went off to school was still there. _Alive._

Craig had never been lucky.

From the minute they passed the run down sign leading into town, Craig felt dread curling deep in the pit of his stomach. They rolled through town, and his anxiety continued to grow with each deserted building. Cars were everywhere, homes and stores raided, rogue spatters of blood littering the streets and walls.

Everything reeked of death.

Craig stood in front of his house, bile rising in his throat when he saw the shattered windows, the bloody hand prints smeared across the door. He couldn't bring himself to go inside, Token and Clyde hesitantly entering the house like Craig had for each of their homes. Tweek stood at his side, resolute, hand clasped firmly with his own. He stayed by Craig's side when his friends emerged, expressions dark. Stayed and rubbed soothing circles over his back as Craig emptied the contents of his stomach on his front lawn, tears streaming down his face.

They couldn't stay. They stopped anywhere they thought they could find supplies, raided what was left of the gun shop, the pharmacy, the Whole Foods they had been so fucking proud of.  


\--------  


He stopped counting how many towns they passed through, each place having fallen victim to the same fate as their home. They could have been driving for days, weeks, months, Craig didn't know. All he knew was that the entire world, his entire world, had gone to shit, and he needed to help salvage the last bit that was still standing.

They found others, usually ragtag teams like their own, fending off the vicious hordes of the undead. Sometimes they traveled together, worked as a unit until they split up, worries of loved ones driving them in different directions. Craig wasn't even sure where they were going anymore. Everyone still breathing that he cared about was with him, and that was enough for now.

Other times he wished they never encountered others. They stole and threatened, greedy in the face of their more imminent death. Sometimes Craig noticed their eyes linger too long, a hunger burning behind them that made him want to rip out their throats like the dead roaming the streets. They never acted. Craig made sure that their hands never grabbed at anything that wasn't theirs.

He often wondered what the bigger danger of this new world was: the walkers or the living.

When the high walls first appeared on the horizon, Craig's impulse was trepidation. But the weary eyes of his friends convinced him to at least try, and now it's been several months in one place. One bed, an actual bed with sheets and everything. The four of them share a house, have neighbors, and work as part of this little growing commune.

But sometimes he gets anxious. Like today.

Craig volunteers for a supply run at the nearby town, Token, Clyde, and even Tweek joining him, the latter with an aggravated "Oh Jesus Craig, are you serious" before joining the team. Sometimes he just needs to leave, to get out of this seemingly perfect town in a world gone to utter shit, and shock himself back into reality.

When he enters the store, shotgun poised and ready, he does a quick sweep of the aisles before locking the door behind him as a precaution. Craig is half way through shoving painkillers and allergy medicine into his backpack when he hears him.

The undead cashier tackles him to the ground before he realizes what happened. Its half attached jaw threatens to fall off completely when it opens its mouth to snap at him, pinning Craig bodily to the hard linoleum and bearing down on him.

The familiar ting of a mental bat making impact with something snaps him back to reality, watching the person who saved him beat the shit out of the walker, its skull nothing more than a bloody pulp splattered across the floor.

"T-thanks," he manages to get out, his throat still burning from where the walker pressed against his windpipe. "He caught me off guard."

"That tends to happen when you go into a building alone," the guy replies, obviously irritated at having had to play hero. He turns to face him then, and Craig instantly feels like all the air has been punched out of his lungs.

_"Craig?"_

_"Kenny?"_


End file.
